FLACCL: CUDA-enabled FLAC encoder by Gregory S. Chudov (prev. FlaCuda), Formerly "lossless codecs and CUDA" Options

[Miguk]

c:\Downloads\FLACCL_0.4\FLACCL>CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe --verify test.wav
FLACCL#0.4, Copyright © 2010 Gregory S. Chudov.
This is free software under the GNU GPLv3+ license; There is NO WARRANTY, to
the extent permitted by law. <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> for details.
Filename : test.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:09:40.1600000
Error : unsupported residual coding

Catalyst 12.1 Preview.

This post has been edited by Miguk: Jan 22 2012, 10:40

[agressiv]

Hey guys, I've been having MD5 signature mismatches with FlacCL on one of my computers with a nVidia GTX 570 card. A second computer, with a slower GT 430 card, works fine. Even with the signature mismatches, files (appear) to be fine, but I'm guessing something will be wrong, somewhere.

I wanted to do some troubleshooting on my own so that it doesn't sound like I'm just punting this out there.

Hardware = Core i7 950, nVidia GTX 570, 12GB RAM

Troubleshooting steps:
FlacCL Level 11 - MD5 signature mismatch (4+ attempts, works ~10% of the time) (Speed = 235x)
FlacCL Level 10 - MD5 signature mismatch (Speed = 254x)
FlacCL Level 9 - No problems (try #1) / MD5 signature mismatch (try #2) (Speed = 281x)
FlacCL Level 8 - MD5 signature mismatch (Speed = 325x)
libFlake Level 11 - No problems (2 attempts) (Speed = 31x)
flake Level 12 - No problems (Speed = 13x)

FlacCL Level 11 - separate computer w/older nVidia card - no problems (Speed = 60x)

File sizes don't even match for a full CD, but they are fairly close. (within a few kilobytes)

Next step - Turned Verify on for FlacCL Level 11 (Speed = 136x)
Got an "Exception: validation failed: iFrame=24603, ch=0" - it will be in a different spot each time. Sometimes it works.

Next step - Tried Changing DoRice, GroupSize, and TaskSize. No consistent results. Worked a few times, failed most of the time.

Next step - Change GPUOnly to False, and changed threads to 4, left Verify On (Speed = 308x)
Haven't gotten this to fail. I've done 10 encodes of the same CD now. flac -t works every time.

Next step - GPUOnly back to True, but leave threads at 4. Fails sometimes. GPUOnly=False seems to be required for it to work for me.

So, how much should I worry about this? GPU Bad? Bug in CUETools with this card? Why would it work when I split the load with the GPU and the CPU? I've tried multiple nVidia drivers, including the latest.

I have no problems leaving this the way it is, certainly if it works - it's faster than GPU only. If there is any other debugging information you want me to collect, I'd be happy to do that.

agressiv

[Wombat]

I use FlacCl more or less from day 1 on, first with a GTX260 and now a GTX560Ti. I tried to provoke encoding errors with insane overclocking on the GPU and its RAM but couldn´t create a single one with reaching clockspeeds no game would run.
So my guess is you may have another stability problem with your CPU/Mainboard/GPU combination. You may try some stability test overclockers use.
There only were 2 songs i found since Gregory created these GPU encoders that made problems but i don´t remember the exact errorcode back then. These were outright fixed by Gregory a while back.

[Miguk]

c:\CUETools>CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe --verify test.wav
FLACCL#0.4, Copyright © 2010 Gregory S. Chudov.
This is free software under the GNU GPLv3+ license; There is NO WARRANTY, to
the extent permitted by law. <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> for details.
Filename : test.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:09:40.1600000
Error : unsupported residual coding

AMD Catalyst 12.3.

[Gregory S. Chudo...]

Does this happen on some specific input file, or does it happen on lots of files?

[Miguk]

c:\CUETools>CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe --verify "c:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Vo
lare\new\01. Prima Di Partire.wav"
FLACCL#0.4, Copyright © 2010 Gregory S. Chudov.
This is free software under the GNU GPLv3+ license; There is NO WARRANTY, to
the extent permitted by law. <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> for details.
Filename : c:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Volare\new\01. Prima Di Partire.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:05:32.5330000
Error : unsupported residual coding

c:\CUETools>CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe --verify "c:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Vo
lare\new\02. Blues For Michel.wav"
FLACCL#0.4, Copyright © 2010 Gregory S. Chudov.
This is free software under the GNU GPLv3+ license; There is NO WARRANTY, to
the extent permitted by law. <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> for details.
Filename : c:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Volare\new\02. Blues For Michel.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:03:55.8400000
Error : unsupported residual coding

c:\CUETools>CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe --verify "c:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Vo
lare\new\03. Widows Walk.wav"
FLACCL#0.4, Copyright © 2010 Gregory S. Chudov.
This is free software under the GNU GPLv3+ license; There is NO WARRANTY, to
the extent permitted by law. <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> for details.
Filename : c:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Volare\new\03. Widows Walk.wav
File Info : 44100kHz; 2 channel; 16 bit; 00:09:22.0270000
Error : unsupported residual coding

c:\CUETools>flac -t "c:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Volare\new\02. Blues For Mi
chel.flac"

flac 1.2.1, Copyright © 2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007 Josh Coalson
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. Type `flac' for details.

02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC
02. Blues For Michel.flac: *** Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATU
S_LOST_SYNC


02. Blues For Michel.flac: ERROR while decoding data
state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME

AudioTester:

3 files scanned in 0.12 seconds
---
3 files failed
C:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Volare\new\01. Prima Di Partire.flac (LOST_SYNC @ 0m 00s)
C:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Volare\new\02. Blues For Michel.flac (LOST_SYNC @ 0m 00s)
C:\_Music\Stefano Di Battista - Volare\new\03. Widows Walk.flac (LOST_SYNC @ 0m 00s)
---
0 files passed

This post has been edited by Miguk: Apr 12 2012, 20:37

[aasoft]

I'm also getting the same error. It happens on pretty much every file I throw at it (although some worked fine, I think), ever since I switched from an NVidia GPU to an ATI one (although I used FlaCuda with the NVidia one, so that's probably not of much help). Oh, and it works just fine if I tell it to encode on the CPU only, instead of the GPU, though, of course, much slower.

[Gregory S. Chudo...]

Please tell which exactly GPU do you use. And if possible, driver version as well.

[aasoft]

Right, I meant to include that, but must've forgotten.
It's a PowerColor Radeon HD 6850. The current driver is the latest one, 8.961.0.0, the one that came with the latest release just a few days back. Catalyst 12.4, to be exact.
But it wasn't working with at least 3 previous releases of the drivers as well, if it helps you. Don't know if it worked with earlier releases, as I never tried the earlier ones.

[Gregory S. Chudo...]

Thanks

[Miguk]

I am using Radeon HD 5870.

As I mentioned earlier, on my Nvidia ION with the latest Nvidia driver FLACCL doesn't work, too.
But it works with 267.54 driver.

[NoMoon]

Having the same "Error : unsupported residual coding" in CueTools. Running an ATI 6950 with Catalyst 12.4 and the latest OpenCL SDK

[Garf]

Benchmark of some modern cards:

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2012/gigabyte_gefo...est/index37.php

[Gregory S. Chudo...]

Very interesting. Thanks a lot!

I'm not entirely surprised that SLI configurations and dual chip cards are often slower than single chip, not all algorithms benefit from this, especially without special fine-tuning.

But it's surprising how Kepler seems slower than Fermi. In theory it should have outperformed AMD. I will have to investigate what's going on here.

[Case]

On my PCIe 3.0 configuration SLI with two GTX 680 cards was only 2% slower than encoding with one card inside. The difference between SLI on and off when two cards were in the machine was about 0.1%.

[Miguk]

I will have to investigate what's going on here.

I hope your investigation brings us working FLACCL back :-)

This post has been edited by Miguk: May 29 2012, 14:36

[IgorC]

Benchmark of some modern cards:

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2012/gigabyte_gefo...est/index37.php

Interesting.

I wonder what performance is per Watt for CPU vs GPU (especially for mobile AMD APU).

This post has been edited by IgorC: May 29 2012, 14:53

[no404error]

Intel® Core™ i7-3770, 8Gb DDRIII-1333, Win7 HP x64

CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe -o nul --cpu-threads 8 --opencl-type CPU --opencl-platform "Intel® OpenCL" test.wav

-0 = 1552.67
-1 = 1402.22
-2 = 1308.66
-3 = 808.33
-4 = 645.38
-5 = 460.92
-6 = 654.20
-7 = 482.51
-8 = 278.95
-9 = 322.66
-10 = 186.75
-11 = 132.91

This post has been edited by no404error: Jun 15 2012, 13:32

[Miguk]

I updated today my ION (notebook) video drivers to the latest NVIDIA version (301.42 x64).
FLACCL test failed again but due to other reasons:
- test 1: only 6 of 9 tracks encoded
- test 2: only 8 of 9 tracks encoded
- audiotester showed 0 errors in encoded tracks in both cases
- cuetools showed every time following error:


flaclib encoded all tracks without any problem.

This post has been edited by Miguk: Jun 19 2012, 14:46

[Miguk]

flaclib = libflac :-)

[IgorC]

Intel® Core™ i7-3770, 8Gb DDRIII-1333, Win7 HP x64

CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe -o nul --cpu-threads 8 --opencl-type CPU --opencl-platform "Intel® OpenCL" test.wav

-0 = 1552.67
-1 = 1402.22
-2 = 1308.66
-3 = 808.33
-4 = 645.38
-5 = 460.92
-6 = 654.20
-7 = 482.51
-8 = 278.95
-9 = 322.66
-10 = 186.75
-11 = 132.91

The speed is so high for real use

Can You run the same configuration but with --cpu-threads 1 or gpu only? It will give a rough idea what to expect from mobile CPUs.

Thank You.

This post has been edited by IgorC: Jun 23 2012, 19:03

[Gregory S. Chudo...]

Can You run the same configuration but with --cpu-threads 1 or gpu only? It will give a rough idea what to expect from mobile CPUs.

Actually, it won't. --cpu-threads option's name is probably a bit confusing in case of --opencl-type CPU.
There are two types of threads - actual opencl threads, which run on GPU(s) in case of --opencl-type GPU, and run on CPU(s) in cases of --opencl-type CPU.
Number of those threads is not controlled by --cpu-threads option, which controls the number of threads of second type - control threads, that schedule opencl work.
So i should probably rename --cpu-threads to --control-threads and maybe introduce a new option --cpu-cores, to control number of CPU cores used by opencl tasks in case of --opencl-type CPU.

[no404error]

Intel® Core™ i7-3770, 8Gb DDRIII-1333, Win7 HP x64

CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe -o nul --opencl-type GPU test.wav

-0 = 375.28
-1 = 764.13
-2 = 1038.91
-3 = 314.01
-4 = 345.24
-5 = 303.78
-6 = 346.60
-7 = 304.84
-8 = 177.76
-9 = 120.67
-10 = 85.10
-11 = 66.12

[acmodeu]

Got gass.cuda.cudaexception on i7-2600k/GTX570 with 304.48 drivers. GTX280 worked fine.

[aasoft]

Any update on the "Error : unsupported residual coding" error? Perhaps there are some test builds you'd like us (those who experience the error) to run?